The Dark Vault
by Tevya Feinstein
Summary: How long will it take before everyone realizes Lucas is missing?


Lucas pressed the button on his watch. It lit up.

"God, five hours." He'd been trapped for five hours now.

Sweat had formed on his forehead, and was slowly dripping down the sides of his face. It tickled as droplets rolled down his spine to the small of his back under his t-shirt.

"Someone, anyone, please let me out!"

He had been pleading for someone to hear him for so long, that what started with a gentle, "Hey, can anyone hear me?" turned to screaming, and finally hoarse whispers. He choked back his fear. Rational thought had finally escaped him. He was starting to accept that he might die there.

Eighteen hours earlier, Davidson in engineering had put in a request for technical support. A cluster of wires connected to the mainframe had shorted, and needed to be replaced deep inside the internal compartment that housed the core for the generators. When LCDR Hitchcock asked him if he'd mind looking into it, Lucas didn't think anything of it. He was happy to help out. Lucas had crawled into the small space to assess the damage, and finding the need for a set of electrodes, he left, and then returned to finish the work. Lifting the hatch to the metal casement, a thick, solid steel shell that closely resembled a tomb, Lucas crawled inside with a flashlight and started the laborious task of replacing two of the fried wires, when the boat suddenly hit a rogue undercurrent. The slight shift was all it took for the steel casement to slam shut, entombing Lucas in a box not much larger than a casket. At first he tried to push the hatch open, but it wouldn't budge. When he realized it had somehow been wedged shut, he contorted his thin frame in a variety of directions in an attempt to use his hands, and finally his legs, to gain the leverage needed to pry it open. When that proved fruitless, he hoped someone might be able to hear him from outside the casing, but the sound of the generators made that highly unlikely. In time, his frustration turned to fear. When the generators kicked in, the roaring sound reverberated through the thick metal casement, marking the point when Lucas' fear turned to panic.

He furiously pounded his fists against the metal walls.

"Please. Someone, please get me out!"

He pounded for so long, and so hard, that his fists had become swollen and bruised. The pain was so intense that he finally started using his knuckles instead. He knocked on the walls furiously, but the sound of his own knuckles slamming into the steel casement echoed in the dark vault. It only seemed to make his sense of panic increase.

He waited. Nothing.

Finally, Lucas turned on his flashlight, only to see an outline of fluid pasted to the inside of the hatch.

"Blood."

He flashed the light on his hands. Blood was dripping from his bruised and battered knuckles, and the bones appeared to have been ground into a grayish white pulp.

"Oh, God. Somebody help."

Then, his flashlight died. Lucas gasped, fighting to hold back the tears. He'd never been so scared in his life. "Oh, God."

As the oxygen started to dissipate, Lucas' mind started reeling, and for a brief moment he wondered if this was what it felt like to be drunk. He felt dizzy and disoriented. His addled mind tried to compute how much time he would have before the oxygen in the airtight chamber would run out, but he had become too light headed to think straight, and realized he was having difficulty even counting to ten.

"One… two… three… f…f… five… no, four… five… sev… no, six…"

He finally gave up. His emotions overwhelmed him, and his body shook, wracking in sobs nobody heard. He whispered, repeating a mantra.

"Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me."

"God, someone please help me."

Sitting in the mess, Ben Krieg, Katie Hitchcock, and Tim O'Neill were having dinner, and conversing about the newfound schematics for the satellite array. They wondered whether Lucas could program some changes to make the signal stronger when Captain Nathan Bridger and Doctor Kristen Westphalen walked over to join them.

Katie was the first to speak. "Sir, we were just discussing the new schematics. Did you happen to see the satellite images from the trench?"

"As a matter of fact, yes I did, commander," Nathan replied enthusiastically.

Kristen quickly chimed in. "I must say, the images were quite fascinating. I'm looking forward to pulling samples when we get closer."

"Sir, we were wondering whether Lucas could help us realign the satellite array to get a clearer shot of the anomalies on the sea floor."

"I think that would be an excellent idea, commander, and if you happen to see Lucas, tell him I'd like to speak to him. He promised to meet me hours ago to go over some programming reports, and he never showed up."

"That's strange, sir. He was supposed to meet me at 1300 hours to go over a list of computer chips he wanted, but he never stopped in," Krieg announced.

"That _is_ strange," said Kristen. "Nathan, he was supposed to work with Darwin to add new vocabulary to the language base hours ago. It's not like Lucas to stand Darwin up."

The captain's demeanor suddenly changed, as he grew increasingly concerned.

"No. No it isn't."

He pushed his tray away. He had this strange, foreboding feeling something was wrong. Throwing his napkin onto his tray, he pushed it away, and looked at the others sitting at the table.

"When was the last time any of you have seen Lucas today?"

Everyone looked at each other, and, speaking in unison, said they hadn't.

Picking up his PAL, Nathan tried to contact the missing computer analyst through a comm link.

He waited.

Lucas didn't respond.

As they observed their captain, Nathan abandoned his dinner, stood up, and walked toward the hatch at what initially started as a normal pace. As he got closer to the galley's hatch, he stopped, as though he sensed something… unusual. Then, suddenly, he picked up speed, and sprinted out of the room and through the corridors to Lucas' quarters, Katie, Ben, Tim, and Kristen following closely on his heels.

Running so quickly he had to grasp the hatch to Lucas' quarters to stop his own momentum, Nathan peered into the young man's quarters to find them empty. There was no sign of Lucas anywhere. He looked at Tim.

"Put out a ship-wide call."

They waited. Lucas didn't respond.

Suddenly, Nathan did something he's rarely ever done in his life: he panicked.

"Commander Ford, I need all senior staff in the wardroom immediately."

Pacing back and forth in the wardroom, Nathan hardly noticed as his senior staff quickly entered. The energy the man was exuding was intense. Nathan ran his hand down his face, and then across the back of his neck, and then turned to his staff.

"I want everyone to think here. When was the last time anyone actually spoke to Lucas. I need to know what he was working on, where he was supposed to be, and whether anyone would have sidetracked him for any reason."

Each of them listed, in detail, what Lucas was doing the last time they actually spoke to him, and then started running through what he was scheduled to work on or failed to show for, and anything they though he might've even remotely considered working on.

"He was working on the Stinger last night," Ben chimed in.

"He was putting together some music tracks after that. I told him to tone it down," said Tim. "It was getting pretty late."

"He promised to stop in on the Bridge to help work on Ortiz' console this morning, but he never made it there."

"He was going to help Davidson out with the mainframe panels in engineering."

There was a brief moment of silence: a very brief moment.

"You don't think?"

"Oh God!"

As the realization of what Katie had just said sunk in, Nathan slammed his hand on his communication console.

"I WANT A MED TEAM IN ENGINEERING… _NOW_!"

Lucas' head hurt. The euphoric feeling from the loss of oxygen had passed, and now his head was pounding. His knuckles were still bleeding, and at one point, in another fit of panic, he thought he might have broken his wrist. What's worse, he thought he was hearing voices.

If he didn't know better, he'd think someone was actually trying to open the dark vault he was trapped in, but then reality seemed to seep in, and he thought the better of it.

"I must be hallucinating."

His lungs hurt. He tried to inhale, but the lack of oxygen had become painful. The best he could do was wheeze when he tried. He closed his eyes, and fell into oblivion.

Outside the steel box, half the seaQuest was trying desperately to reach him, and none of them more anxiously than Nathan.

_Please, if he's in there, let him be alive. _

Pacing the distance between two generators, Nathan waited impatiently as crews worked to loosen the steel hatch that had been wedged shut so tightly, that the salvage team had to be called in to use a blowtorch to take the steel hinges off.

"Nathan, look."

Waiting nearby as Nathan paced, Kristen just happened to look down to find something shiny under the grate below them. Nathan bent down and lifted the grate. Reaching in, he pulled out a candy wrapper.

It was their first sure sign that Lucas had been there.

Now Nathan _knew_ with near certainty that Lucas was trapped in that box.

"What's taking them so long? He might already be out of air in there, Kristen."

Kristen put a hand on his shoulder. "I know, Nathan. They're working as fast as they can."

"It's not fast enough."

Katie stood nearby, staring at the floor below.

"God, I feel terrible. This is all my fault. If I hadn't asked him to help Davidson, none of this would've happened," Katie said, as she waited with the others nearby.

"It wasn't your fault."

"No, Ben, it was. I should've handled it myself."

"Then you would've been in there instead of Lucas. No, Katie. You have to believe things happen for a reason."

"No, Ben. They don't."

"Look, I'm not going to argue metaphysics here. There's nothing you can do about it right now regardless."

"I feel so… helpless."

Tim looked at both of them. "Pray."

BANG!

It was the steel door. It had finally given way.

Shining a light into the dark hollow of the vault, the salvage team found one shoe, and then another. Pulling Lucas toward them, they slowly extricated the boy from the box feet first. The team formed a working party. They spaced themselves out, lining the thin corridor leading to the heart of the engineering generators, and placing the unconscious boy on a stretcher, they slowly worked the stretcher past each member of the salvage crew toward the opening. The last member of the team passed the stretcher to Nathan and Kristen, where the med team was standing by.

When the stretcher finally made it to Kristen, both Kristen and Nathan leaned down to check for a pulse. It was there, but thready. She gave Nathan a reassuring glance. Joshua Levin placed an oxygen mask over Lucas' nose and mouth, while Kristen surveyed the boy's wounds. If his knuckles were any indication, Lucas had clearly panicked. His hands were raw and bleeding. His knuckles were ground to a pulp, and his nails had been lifted partially off his fingers. Kristen surmised that he tried to claw at the door in desperation when pounding had eventually become too painful for his swollen hands to bear. On Kristen's orders, one medic started an IV, while Kristen covered Lucas with a blanket.

Nathan waited for Kristen to voice what he couldn't.

_To what extent had he been deprived of oxygen? _

_"_Nathan, until Lucas wakes up, we won't know whether there will be long-term damage. We'll just have to hope for the best."

Nathan didn't find this very reassuring.

As the team hauled the stretcher up the ladder and through the corridors, Nathan followed with Katie, Ben, and Tim close behind.

While Katie, Ben, and Tim went back to their posts, Nathan stayed in med bay, watching as Kristen and Joshua worked together to connect the necessary electrodes to Lucas to monitor his breathing, heart rate, and brain activity. Kristen checked the readouts, and then gave Nathan a reassuring glance. The prognosis was good. Kristen and Joshua gently lifted Lucas' damaged hands, and applied salve to his battered and bleeding knuckles. Then they carefully wrapped both hands in gauze.

"Nathan, would you get a cloth and fill that basin with warm water, please?"

Kristen gestured toward the sink nearby. Nathan filled the basin, grabbed a cloth, and when he returned, he sat near Lucas' head. Wringing the warm water from the cloth, Nathan gently wiped Lucas' face, forehead, and neck. It helped to be doing something useful.

Kristen covered Lucas with a warm blanket, and finally sank into a chair beside Lucas' bed. She glanced to the other side, where Nathan sat, bent over, his head in his hands, and waited.

"Nathan, he's going to be alright."

Nathan nodded. He could only hope.

Hours passed, and Kristen and Nathan had both fallen asleep, one on each side of Lucas. They had no way of knowing Lucas had been dreaming when he bolted upright and screamed.

"OH GOD! PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP ME GET OUT!"

Once Nathan and Kristen realized what was happening, they jumped, and quickly took action. Nathan held Lucas' arms as he tried to pound his heavily bandaged wrists against them with all his might.

"Lucas! Lucas! You're out!"

Lucas was too disoriented to comprehend what Nathan was saying, so he grabbed Lucas's face, and holding it only inches from his own, shook the boy out of his confusion.

"Lucas, look at me."

When Lucas finally came to his senses, Nathan's hands slipped down his neck onto his shoulders, and he whispered. "You're out, kiddo."

Lucas had stopped pounding, but instead started gasping for air. He was hyperventilating.

Reaching over as Lucas sat up in bed, Kristen placed her hand behind his back, and rubbed in a circular motion. "Lucas, try to relax. You've been through a traumatic experience."

"Oh, God," he whispered.

Slowly laying back down on the bed as lucidity returned to him, Lucas looked at the two of them.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I… I thought… I…

Nathan placed a calming hand on Lucas' cheek.

"It's alright, kiddo. Everything's alright."

As Lucas looked at the captain, Kristen gently brushed the hair back off his face. He turned his head toward her.

"Lucas, do you remember what happened?"

Lucas looked away for a moment, then, shifting his gaze back and forth between Kristen and Nathan, tried to speak.

"I was… I tried to… I couldn't… no one could… my flashlight… it… I couldn't breath… and… " Lucas gasped, as he remembered what had happened.

" blood… it was… all over..."

'Lucas, your hands have been injured. We've wrapped them, but they're going to hurt. I need you to tell me if you're in pain, and I want you to try to eat something soon."

"I'm so tired."

"Yes, I know. You're going to be. Are you warm enough?"

Lucas shook his head.

"I'll get you another blanket."

Lucas stared at his bandaged wrists as Kristen walked away for a moment. He was finally starting to regain his composure, and his mind was steeped in thought as he pieced together what had happened. After a few minutes of silence, Lucas finally looked at the captain, and spoke.

"Sir? I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Lucas, sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't get the panel fixed. I didn't replace the electrodes."

Placing his hand gently along Lucas' face, Nathan looked directly at him, stunned at what the young man just said.

"Lucas, you almost died in that generator casement. The last thing I'm worried about right now is whether the electrodes were replaced."

Nathan had to question whether the lack of oxygen was affecting Lucas' ability to think.

A moment later, Nathan knew it had to have been.

Lucas lifted his bandaged wrists, and presenting them to Nathan, said, "Yeah, but sir, I'm not sure when I'm going to be _able_ to work on them."

Clearly, Lucas didn't understand what the captain meant.

"Kiddo, I want you to listen to me very carefully, and when I'm finished, I want you to repeat to me what I've said."

Lucas nodded.

"I don't want you going anywhere near engineering again. Do you understand what I've just said, Lucas?"

Lucas nodded his head.

"Good. Now repeat it."

"It."

Nathan smiled, and patted his shoulder.

Lucas was going to be just fine.


End file.
